Deceived Read Online Free PDF

a few slim shreds of evidence.” He rolled his eyes.
    Gabriel thought about that for a long moment. “I suppose I think it must be annoying not to be able to do it. Don’t you get bored?”
    “Only occasionally,” Evan said with a meaningful look toward his brother.
    Gabriel only laughed. “But what did she say to you?”
    “Not much,” Evan admitted. “But it doesn’t take your deduction skills to guess she has something to hide. One mention of Claire and she jumped out of her seat like I had stuck a tack in her backside.”
    Her really very perfect backside, now that he saw it twitching up to the double doors ahead of him. A man could really hold on to a set of hips like that. Holding her steady while he—
    “What are you going to do about it?” Gabriel asked.
    Evan blinked, still distracted by where his entirely errant mind had taken him. He moved into the house and down the hallway toward the ballroom where the families would take up positions in the receiving line and greet the great many people in the village and friends who had traveled for the celebration to come.
    “Do about what?”
    “Her!” Gabriel said with a snort of frustration. “Great God.”
    “Why should I do anything about her?” Evan asked, taking his place in the line and dropping his voice so no one would hear. “You should talk to her. She likes you.”
    The moment he said the words, he wished he could take them back. After all, his younger brother was very handsome in his own right and he and Josie had their love of Claire in common. Spending time together could easily lead them to…to something Evan didn’t want to consider.
    But Gabriel was staring at him like he had grown a second head. “Are you so daft?”
    Evan wrinkled his brow. “What? What are you implying?”
    Gabriel rolled his eyes with a laugh that drew the attention from several of the young ladies in the line that was forming outside the ballroom.
    “I’m afraid she won’t say a word to me,” his brother said.
    The line began to move and suddenly there were hands to shake and felicitations to accept. For a few moments, he and Gabriel did that, and Evan was unable to address the strange statement. But finally one of the villagers stopped at Audrey and Jude’s side, holding up the line for enough time that Evan could face Gabriel again.
    “Why wouldn’t she say anything to you?” he whispered.
    His brother shook his head. “Can’t you see? Josie Westfall has a tendre for you.”
    “That is patently ridiculous—” Evan began, but Gabriel cut him off by motioning across the room where Josie was standing with her mother. To Evan’s surprise, Josie was staring at him . But the moment she caught his gaze on her, she darted her eyes away with a deep frown.
    Gabriel laughed. “She hates herself for it, but she does.”
     
     

Chapter Three

     
     
    Josie stood on the terrace, letting the cool night air waft over her bare arms, and tried to calm herself. She was failing, failing miserably, and no amount of deep breaths or attempts to clear her mind were working.
    It had not been her most stellar of days. After the wedding she’d had the distinct displeasure of post-wedding talk. Her mother had sighed theatrically and lamented how she might never get to plan a wedding.
    Even when Josie had pointed out her mother had planned not one but three weddings, two for her older sisters and one for her brother, she would not be consoled. And then there were the rest, kind-meaning people who approached her and asked when she would take a husband.
    As if she just hadn’t thought of plucking one from the crowd of men lining up to wed her.
    “The nonexistent crowd of men,” she muttered as she looked up at the full moon and tried not to curse it.
    When she was honest with herself, the usual conversation about her spinsterhood wasn’t what was truly bothering her. It was really her conversation with Evan that made her anxious. She didn’t like being with him. It